In a world where Ed Sheeran, Ben Fogle, Felicity Kendal and Samantha Cameron have all gone under the needle, the tattoo should by now have outgrown its association with mariners, convicts and bikers. If anything, tattoos are so utterly ubiquitous that they’ve become more like a stamp of belonging than a sign of rebellion.

Surely if anything can cement the tattoo's place in mainstream culture it's the unveiling of the Question Time host's "modest-sized" scorpion. Perhaps he will even inspire a generation of pensioners to spend their winter fuel allowance on body art.

But does that mean we'll start seeing a decline in the numbers of young people getting inked up? Every teen instinctively knows that the moment their parents show a modicum of interest in the music they are listening to, the album, artist and possibly the entire genre will irredeemably lose any scrap of merit. It is a cut-and-dry case of death by association and it will be shunned, cast to one side and forever filed away in a box marked Things That Are Not Cool.

Barack Obama captured this point beautifully when he explained that his and his wife Michelle’s ruse for ensuring that their two daughters never get a tattoo: "What we've said to the girls is, 'If you guys ever decided you're going to get a tattoo, then Mummy and me will get the exact same tattoo in the same place. And we'll go on YouTube and show it off as a family tattoo.'”

What I fear Dimbleby hasn’t counted on is the addictive nature of tattoos. I know from personal experience that the fear, pain, pleasure and pride that are part of the tattoo process are an intoxicating set of sensations that one becomes eager to repeat. In the photographs that the BBC released of Dimbleby going under the needle, an unmistakeable twinkle of delight is visible behind the pained wince. Clearly, he's going to be hooked.

And with roughly 18 months until the next general election, he’s got plenty of time to get to work. What I’d give to see him peering from out behind a Mike Tyson-esque Maori-inspired facial tattoo while calling out the results for Henley.

Meanwhile, I wonder if we will start to see tattoo-removal parlours popping up in east London, as inked-up hipsters join waiting lists to have their tatts painfully lasered from their bodies. It’ll be the latest craze. Dead progressive. Something not to tell your parents about.